Canada's Hundred Days

Canada's Hundred Days8 August – 11 November 1918

Module objective: Guided by both research and inquiry-based questions, students will explore how historians have come the conclusions they have made about the Hundred Days campaign using primary source evidence and accounts.

Intended audience: Grades 10-12

Prior knowledge required: Vimy Ridge; General knowledge of the First World War

Primary HTC addressed: Primary Source Evidence

Secondary HTCs addressed: Historical Significance

Interested in combining the Lest We Forget project with some activities from this module? Here are links to the service files of two soldiers whose individual stories connect with this module’s topic:

Problem overview

From August to early November 1918 The Canadian Corps launched a consecutive wave of attacks against the German Army first at Amiens on the Somme, and then from Arras to Cambrai in France and then on into Belgium. Those last months of the First World War turned into open, mobile warfare as muddy trenches were left behind and a great advance towards Germany began. Canadian efforts formed the northern wing of the general Allied offensive by British, Dominion, French and American troops that finally defeated the German Army and won the First World War. German field armies were all but destroyed on the battlefield that summer and autumn adding to their crippling casualty counts from the previous four years of fighting on three fronts. German morale and willingness to continue the war collapsed. Historians are nearly unanimous that the Canadian Corps had emerged as one of the best Allied fighting forces on the Western Front and that they made a decisive contribution to final victory.

More than 42,000 Canadians were killed and wounded during the Hundred Days campaign making it the costliest, if longest phase continuous Canadian operation of the First World War. Canadian losses during the 1918 open war of movement phase were higher than in any major battle during the long period of attritional trench warfare between 1915 and 1917.

This last period of the war was also noteworthy because for the first time Canadian troops met French and Belgian civilians freed from a difficult German occupation they had endured since 1914. Many Canadian troops were welcomed as liberators by the civilian population and subsequently assisted them with emergency aid after retreating German troops plundered their meagre food supplies on the verge of winter.

It remains unclear why this offensive in which Canadians helped with the war is overshadowed in Canadian national memory by the 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge?

Problem background

In early 1918 Allied senior leaders forecasted that the war would likely drag on until 1919 when American military power became available in sufficient quantity and after German Army manpower and replacements were exhausted. In the spring of 1918, the Germans massed their armies in France after concluding a separate peace with Russia. They mounted one last desperate offensive aimed at winning the war before American troops tipped the balance of numbers against them. The German “Spring Offensive” took ground back from the Allies that had been hard won in 1916 and 1917, but fell far short of victory and ultimately cost more German lives then that nation could sustain.

The Canadian and Allied offensive at Amiens that opened on 8 August 1918 began as a counter-attack against German Armies on the Somme. The Canadian-Australian assault at Amiens was backed by large numbers of British tanks and planes. Success at Amiens revealed how Germany was close to collapse, convincing Allied leaders that the time had come for a relentless assault by every available Allied soldier to finish Germany off within the year.

There was no time for the Canadians to rest and reconstitute after two weeks of intense fighting at Amiens in August. Instead the Canadian Corps rushed back to the Vimy Ridge – Arras area in late August to open attack German units manning the northern anchor of the Hindenburg Line. The Canadians struck next from 26 August to 3 September 1918, defeating the Germans manning a deep belt of fixed defences backed on the Drocourt-Queant Line. In that week, the Canadians won control of Dury Ridge overlooking the incomplete Canal du Nord, at a cost of 11,000 killed and wounded. Afterwards General Arthur Currie paused to rest, re-supply and organize his force for the next blow.

The Canadians attacked again in late September as part of the general Allied assault across the Western Front, from Belgium in the north, across the wide British and Dominion front from Cambrai to St. Quentin and on along the French sector from Soissons to Verdun, strengthened by the American Expeditionary Force. The whole Allied force attacked under the unified and able leadership of French Marshall Ferdinand Foch.

The late September Canadian Corps attack across the Canal du Nord overwhelmed three belts of German defences through to Bourlon Wood and the edge of the major road and railway hub city of Cambrai. Canal du Nord and Cambrai are considered by many historians to be General Currie and the Canadian Corps’ First World War most successful and significant battles. By 9 October, the German Army in the Canadian sector was wrecked, buckling and beginning to retreat. Afterwards, the Canadian Corps pressed on against a disintegrating German army first to Valenciennes by the end of October and then Mons in the days before the armistice.

Unlike previous Western Front battlefields from which the civilians was evacuated, the last actions from Valenciennes to Mons had to be conducted carefully to avoid harming the civilian population still present on the battlefield. It was in this context that rapidly advancing Canadian units received warm receptions from French and Belgian people finally freed from years of difficult and sometimes exploitative German occupation. The final end on 11 November brought few parades and celebrations as most Canadian troops were too exhausted from the Hundred Days exertion or for the war in general to fully appreciate that on 11 November 1918 it was finally over.

Key questions and debates

The three student activities in this module are designed to address the key questions and debates surrounding the topic, and are framed by the guideposts to historical thinking for each of the historical thinking concepts ​addressed in the module. Activities are intended to be completed in order. Please click below to see an activity overview, guiding questions, and additional topics/questions the teacher may introduce.

Students will engage in a role play to explore evidence related to General Currie’s libel suit against the Port Hope Evening Guide in order to develop their abilities to understand the origins of sources.

Culminating activity/assessment

​To demonstrate their ability to corroborate sources, students will consider the debate among historians on whether the Canadian contribution to the war earned Canada an independent voice at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.

What role did the victory in 1918 play in this achievement for Canada?

What is the significance of Canada having its own voice, separate from Great Britain?

Based on what they have read, students must answer these questions, considering how their sources confirm or conflict with each other.

Students demonstrating sophisticated thinking will rely on their understanding of the contexts of their sources, rather than personal opinion. Students should also be able to articulate through this module their understanding that significance varies over time, and from group to group.